Your Toughest Bible Questions Answered! With Allen Parr

if indeed this is a promise from god it's a promise from god that you can ask for anything you want in my name and it will be given to you then why is it that we don't see more christians realizing or experiencing that promise [Music] welcome to the elisa childers podcast i'm so excited to introduce you to my guest today alan parr he's the host of the beat by alan parr youtube channel which has just exploded it's such a massive uh apologetics and theology uh channel on youtube where he answers so many unique and difficult questions about christianity and the bible and about god and uh alan it's just so great to have you on the show today thanks so much for being here oh listen i'm so excited to be here i love what you're doing and look forward to a great conversation and uh uh hopefully we'll be able to get you on my channel as well sometimes so thanks for having me that would be fun and you know the one thing about your youtube channel and we were chatting about this a little bit before we went on the air is you tackle unique questions about christianity you tack tackle a lot of really tough questions that people probably would be more uh wanting to kind of shy away from but you're not scared you're not scared of like any question that christians might be asking so definitely recommend your channel for all of those types of questions and we're going to get into a few of those today just to give people a little taste of what you do but just to introduce my audience to you if anyone's unfamiliar with the work that you do i would just love to hear about your testimony were you raised in a christian home how did you come into relationship with the lord just give us a little back story yeah sure so um i was fortunate to um grow up with christian parents although my dad wasn't a christian um until a little bit later in his life and due to to a series of events my father led my sister and i to the lord whenever i was eight years old and so at eight years old i came to know the lord but obviously i didn't have like a really good relationship with christ until i was about 19. so between 8 and 19 i wasn't necessarily a wild child i wasn't out there doing anything crazy but i was doing things that teenagers would do getting into trouble and then when i went off to college kind of had that same lifestyle so even though i went to church grew up grew up in church i never read my bible didn't really pray very much i just kind of was a christian by name but it wasn't until i went to college and um somebody actually discipled me and really taught me what it really meant to be a christian and it was at that point that i started to really take my walk with christ very seriously started putting away some of the practices that i was involved in in terms of uh just different activities and sinful things that i was doing in college and so around 19 or 20 or so and i got really serious about the lord and then i actually ended up graduating from college and started working as an electrical engineer for ford motor company and it wasn't until it wasn't two years into my career where i actually felt like the lord was calling me into full-time ministry and at that time i was like god are you serious like i just landed this job and i finally was out of school had money to spend but i started teaching the bible on um tuesday nights at a bible study got a chance to preach a couple of times and it was like for the first time in my life i knew that this was what god was calling me to do and i was like super crystal clear on that so now i had to make a decision am i going to just go the career route make a lot of money or am i going to follow this call where i may not make much of anything as a minister so thankfully i um followed my call to ministry came down to dallas i got into dallas theological seminary where i graduated from in 2004 and ever since then i've been working on staff uh either part-time or full-time for i would say from 2004 to about 2 000 and uh let's see about 16 maybe you know about to about 2014 actually so in 2014 i had this vision like from god like that i could get online and start a youtube channel and at that time i didn't know anything about youtube didn't know anything about creating videos nothing like i was totally clueless but i knew i wanted to have a bigger platform to share my gift with the world instead of just the local church and so that's when i started researching youtube learning the ins and outs of the platform learning about um you know how to create videos and how to shoot videos and lighting and editing and all the different things that go into running a youtube channel and at the time i had no idea that the channel was going to grow the way it has now i was just excited to have a platform to get my gift out to the world and now five years later god has blessed the the channel to really grow and reach people over the world so that's kind of a short version of how i got into youtube that's so great i i am i'm very blessed that i didn't have to do all the research stuff because my husband did all that like when covet hit and and he's a road manager so normally he's traveling but he was home and so he's like i gotta i gotta do something so he started watching all these tutorials so he set up my whole youtube studio and i was like well i hope you looked great by the way thank you but i'm like i hope you don't go back out on the road because he i mean i know a few things but he's really the one who did all this research to to make it look the way it does and so i do the content and he does the aesthetic there so that works out really good for us but you you do have such a great youtube channel uh and like i said you tackle really tough and unique questions and so we're gonna give uh my audience a little taste of that today um we're gonna we've talked through some questions we can uh address and just give a biblical perspective on because i think sometimes we hear the the charge from either the atheist world or we hear the charge from people who have deconverted well we you know we can't ask any tough questions or christians don't like to be asked tough questions and that's what i like about you is that you're not afraid of the tough questions and so we're going to go through some of these and so this is one that i think a lot of people have had to think through some have sadly had to think through it because they've been through this personal experience and others i think a question like this can actually be something that if it's not answered properly can cause them to maybe doubt god's goodness or something along those lines and so the question is is do babies go to heaven if they die so so help us with that one alan yeah yeah so that's a once again it's a very common question and um you know it's one that you know we have to be very very sensitive towards because as you said sadly there's a lot of people that have had that experience i've got a three-year-old and a two-year-old and i could literally not imagine you know what how i would deal with that if um you know if something god forbid were to happen to them so the the bigger answer to this question is we really don't know 100 for sure because the bible does not clearly say babies who die go to heaven or babies who die before this age right people throw around this idea of the age of accountability it's that mystical age that if you're after this age then you should be able to understand the gospel and uh either accept it or reject it but then before this age um you know god doesn't expect you to really understand the gospel and therefore you can't be responsible for it but nobody really knows what that age of accountability is that's kind of a man-made man-made thing so you know there's some scriptures that people typically point to to try to suggest that yes indeed babies go to heaven so i'll throw a couple of them out there you know people will say well jesus you know said let the little children come to them come to me and uh if you have the faith of a little children you know these little children then you can you know enter the kingdom and uh you know you know obviously jesus had a heart for children but that scripture alone even though it expresses god's heart for children and jesus's love for children doesn't necessarily answer the question clearly okay yes all babies go to heaven right and another another one that's probably the most popular one is in second samuel when david um his child that he had out of an adulterous affair with bathsheba died and then david expressed his desire to uh to see his child again and says hey i um he can't come back to me but one day i will go to where he is and once again as much as we want to point to that and say okay this is a proof text we have to be fair as but as as bible students and scholars we have to be fair and be careful that we don't read into the text what we wanted to say and we have to let the text speak for itself and so david was basically expressing his desire to one day be reunited with his deceased son but that verse doesn't say it's a guarantee so i go through you know in my video i go through a couple of different um uh you know verses one of which people might say is well yes that baby will go to heaven if that baby was elect right so if you know we look at ephesians 1 where it says that god has chosen us before the foundation of the world well then if that is indeed the case that god has selected different people to be saved before the foundation of the world then whether that person dies at 99 or 9 months if they're elect yes they're going to go to heaven excuse me but that doesn't answer the question about the babies that are not elect right like so if a child is dies at three months and they never got a chance to reject the gospel then what happens to them so my premise is this this falls into the category of deuteronomy 29 29 let the secret things of the lord belong to the lord there's certain things that he has not revealed to us but he has revealed to us what that he's loving that he's trustworthy that he's kind that he is merciful that he's long suffering that he's compassionate he's faithful and so if we look at those characteristics of god i would lean towards the idea that yeah babies that do die are going to go to heaven i think that's such a great final point you make there because sometimes i think it can be our tendency or our knee-jerk reaction to come to the scriptures to try to prove that god is good or prove that god is just or moral but i think a better way to approach the scriptures is knowing like we're gonna we're gonna learn about the nature of character and character of god and he is just he is fair he's not going to do something that is unjust or unfair because that would go against his nature and so whatever that is as it applies to this situation and really anybody's eternal destination i think we have to start with the premise of knowing that god is just and he's good and uh and i think sometimes we miss that or or even new christians miss that or people who are maybe trying to process difficult questions but um are not laying a good foundation within which to understand who god is and so i i like that answer and i i i agree with that i think that that that's a good a good way to come about it um the next question we're going to talk about has to do with sin and christians and so i think this is this has to be i know this has to be such a huge question for so many christians because all of us struggle with sin and on some level or another and i've even thought about this when when is a sin considered living in sin because i i sin every day and you know i don't want to but i do and you know some of those sins are repeated and so when does that move into that category of living in sin and uh and so i'd love to get your perspective on that so the question is can a christian live in sin and still go to heaven yeah now you know that's probably one of the most popular questions that i get asked along with you know once saved always saved eternal security you know these are questions that people ask all the time because they're very very concerned that you know if they are performing certain things or involved in certain sins that they may not go to heaven so you know here is the way that i always understand this question first and foremost once again i try to be biblical with everything that i do and look at the scriptures the apostle paul clearly in first corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 along with going into chapter three he really breaks down um three different classes of of men uh men men or women mankind so you know you have the uh the the unbeliever so those are people that just don't don't believe in christ and then you have the uh the actually four classes of men excuse me so you have the unbeliever so he's unspiritual right and then you have the baby christian who just gets saved and they don't know much then you have the carnal christian and then you have the spiritual christian right now it's not our job to go around and start saying well you're a baby christian you're a carnal christian you're a spiritual christian as we try to do sometimes but the bible clearly allows for different levels of spirituality now along the lines of the carnal christian even paul himself strangely enough says hey i am carnal i am fleshly i mean he calls himself that and even talks about his own personal struggle with sin so the question is this whenever we're struggling with sin are we indeed doing that are we struggling with it are we wrestling with it are we experiencing anxiety over it are we experiencing conviction of the holy spirit as a result of that um if so you know does it grieve our heart whenever we do this do we confess it to the lord do we make attempts to try to repent and turn from it but we're still struggling with it you know i would say that if somebody is genuinely struggling with sin i would want to believe that indeed yes they're still saved because if they weren't struggling and wrestling with it then there would be no conviction over that particular sin there's a reason why they feel bad about it and feel ashamed and and struggle with it so um you know can a christian uh struggle with sin yes i believe that we can because paul said in romans 7 that he struggled with sin personally and you know jesus talks about that as well as now the question is also how do we know if we're living in sin or not right and this is a deeper question i think whenever we start to commit a sin without any sort of remorse or if we are making plans for sin for instance living together before marriage you know purposely giving ourselves into a homosexual relationship that is an example of somebody who is making plans to sin we're we're already saying in advance i'm going to stay in this situation and therefore i don't care what the bible says right that to me is a much more dangerous place for a professing christian to be than just simply a christian who's struggling with sin um and then i'll make this last point uh even though we may struggle with sin and it's possible for christians to struggle with repetitive sin we have to understand that there's going to be major consequences for our sin even though we may be forgiven we can't escape the discipline of god and the consequences that may come along with our decision to stay in a particular sin yeah that's good i i don't know who said this i just remember reading this somewhere or hearing it somewhere where somebody said if we could sin our way out of salvation we would have all already done it you know like amen i would have that already happened a long time ago yeah so that's good that's good um okay this is this is one i think that is really relevant to a lot of people who grew up in church um and we're gonna talk a little bit about the prosperity gospel in a moment but this sort of relates with the prosperity gospel and that is you know there's this verse where jesus says whatever you ask in my name will be done and people interpret that to mean you can basically speak something into existence essentially if you use the name of jesus if you speak it your words have the creative power to manifest that reality and that is what a lot of people say this verse means and so the question that i'd love to ask you is can we ask for anything in jesus name and it will be done yeah so you know exactly and you know that's the whole um you know positive confession and and things related to the word of faith movements we'll talk about in just a moment but um the first question i would ask somebody is how's that working for you right how's the how's that working for you um is that here's the thing if indeed this is a promise from god it's a promise from god that you can ask for anything you want in my name and it will be given to you then why is it that we don't see more christians realizing or experiencing that promise right if i say hey lord i want a new ferrari in jesus name and i end my prayers in jesus name right why don't i have that ferrari tomorrow or let's just get more spiritual god i want to have a million youtube subscribers tomorrow so i can reach more people for you lord right you know my motivation is right in jesus name right so clearly it doesn't work just by saying in jesus name or claiming something it just doesn't work that way um so we have to ask ourselves the question what does that really mean so we look at the context of what jesus is saying what i personally believe is happening in that passage is that jesus is giving a unique power to his apostles and basically saying hey i trust you i have trained you uh you've i've modeled for you what ministry is all about and so whatever you thomas matthew john bartholomew peter james right whatever you ask for in my name therefore it will be done he knows that they are going to ask for things in ministry after he leaves in accordance with his divine will and he also knows that in this dispensation of time yes there's going to be certain miraculous powers that they are going to need to be able to have in order to authenticate the message because at that time a lot of people wouldn't listen to the message without seeing the miracles we know that's why jesus did a lot of miracles yes he wanted to heal people but he knew that if i could do this miracle then people would now listen to my message so i think that that verse is really more so um contextual and a promise to the apostles and not a general promise to every single christian that will live i've also heard uh which i think goes with what you just said and i'd love to get your opinion on this i've heard uh interpretations of this or maybe it's more of an application of you know basing on the context and the the interpretation that you just gave you know the application for us today would be and and i'd love to get your opinion on this is that even if this does apply to us in some broader sense that's what jesus is saying to ask for something in his name means to be asking according to his will because you can't ask in his name for something that goes against his name right and you can't ask for something that goes against his will and his nature and and it be true and and so would you would you agree with that application i would exactly yeah and in my video that i deal with on this i do talk about that where you know okay so we know that this verse in its original context was more than likely jesus talking to his apostles but okay that that could be true for just about all the gospels right so how does that apply to like us right so yes i do believe that for us we have to check our motives in terms of why i'm asking for something and we have to really ask ourselves the question is this really in accordance with god's perfect will for my life and then the last question we really need to ask is how is what i'm asking for going to advance the kingdom of god because we we like to ask god for a lot of things but god is interested in one thing as tony evans says the kingdom agenda he wants to push his agenda his kingdom and forward his kingdom so if what i'm asking god to do isn't really going to contribute to moving the kingdom forward then it might not necessarily be in his will yeah it's good stuff all right well let's get into the prosperity gospel it's sometimes referred to that way sometimes it's referred to as the word of faith movement uh just a little background on myself i i didn't grow up in the prosperity gospel but i was exposed to it i think ideas just kind of in the the culture and in the christian culture and then i really sort of uh was faced with it when i was a young adult when i was uh living i'd moved from california to new york and i'd gone to some different meetings um that you know they don't it's not like they put up a sign and say hey we're the prosperity gospel we're gonna you know teach you this other thing over here so you just go to the whatever the big meeting is that everybody was going to and i just remember being so struck by how different the biblical interpretations were because i had studied the bible my whole life and all of these verses that were so precious to me were all of the sudden being applied to money and i'm and i'm going back going i it never even occurred to me to make that specific bible verse about money and of course prosperity gospel isn't just about money but give us a little bit of a definition of what is the prosperity gospel and how does it differ from the true gospel yeah so um this is a loaded question but you know the prosperity gospel is the idea that within the sacrifice of christ and within the atonement of christ there are inherent promises that we have the right to claim as believers so we have the right as believers to claim divine healing yeah and we also have the right to claim um prosperity and so um there's a ton of scriptures that they will point to mostly out of context and i'll give people one where they'll say you know one of their famous ones is by his stripes we are healed you know isaiah chapter 53 and so they look at that and they'll say okay well by the stripes that jesus took on his back were healed and they don't even look at the fact that throughout the entire book of isaiah the word healing is referring to a spiritual healing when jesus or something when god is talking about for i have healed israel right he's not talking about physical sin he's talk he's talking about physically he's talking about i've said i've healed their sinfulness their waywardness their backsliding and so we can't just look at that word healing throughout the whole book of isaiah and notice that it's talking to a spiritual uh healing and then look in this one verse and say oh that must mean that i'm going to be healed of every single disease that we have so that is an overview of the prosperity theology but some of the problems with it that did make it a not basically make it a false gospel is that a few things and it's very very dangerous for people to follow this this prosperity theology number one it creates a very significant disappointment in god in the lives of so many people when you have these teachers that are saying hey if you just sow a seed into my ministry or if you just confess this or hey god is going to heal you of that and then they believe that because they don't know any better they're younger christians they don't know any better and then someone doesn't get healed their father doesn't get healed their mother still dies of cancer and now they're not blaming the church they're blaming god because they feel like god has let them down and as a result god is not loving god is not good god is not trustworthy god does not keep his word and therefore i don't want to follow god anymore so it creates a very significant disappointment in god but then the bigger part of it is that it really trades places with god right in other words the true gospel is such that god has done so much for us that in response to what god has done for us we are to do for him and we do what god tells us to do with the prosperity theology it almost sounds like they're reversing it where we are able to control the hand of god by pulling certain hands little strings and confessing things and so now we're putting ourselves in the place of god where we can we can create things with our creative or we can claim it we can decree it we can declare it we can blab it and grab it and whatever and so now we are controlling god and we are putting ourselves in the position of god and we're putting god in the position of a servant where he merely exists to serve us and to fulfill the things that we create with our models so it's a very very huge problem so you mentioned that and i'm glad you made this distinction because this is what i think adds to how dangerous that this gospel this false gospel can be is that it's tied in with the atonement and you sort of hinted at this when you brought up the verse by his stripes we are healed i wonder if you can expand on that a little bit talk about you know historically and biblically what christians have believed obviously there's a lot of different metaphors the bible uses to help us understand what jesus accomplished on the cross but but this idea that we are never supposed to be sick that you find in the prosperity gospel is often like you mentioned tied into the atonement so i wonder if you could focus in on that a little bit because i'm sure i i always want to be so gracious and gentle to people who are listening or going wait a minute i always pray that verse when i pray for somebody to be healed i and they they've just never realized that that's not the right context within which it was originally used and um you know and if that's you don't i don't want you to feel bad you know bad or whatever um because i there was a time in my life where i legitimately thought that that verse that that's exactly what that was about and every time i prayed for someone to be healed or if i prayed for myself to be healed i would bring up that verse and and declare that you know thinking well this is what the bible says and in a way you know that's connected with the atonement so i wonder if you could just expand on that a little bit for people who might be kind of confused about about this yeah well first off let me let me just briefly talk a little bit about this idea of jesus healing as well because i think there's a very very huge misconception um in the in terms of jesus and healing and so if you read through the new testament it's easy or the gospels it's easy to think that jesus just healed every single person right that he came in contact with and we have to really understand that that is not necessarily the case what is the case is that the people that jesus did choose to heal are therefore highlighted and brought to the surface of the of the biblical text and so therefore we can read about the individual stories of the people that he decided to heal but there's no evidence that every single person that jesus saw that was sick throughout his whole earthly ministry he decided to heal them the other verses they said all who were sick that he healed but that might be all the people that are in a certain locale but not necessarily general so that's the first thing but now we look at this context and this is a really good lesson for people who'd really need to learn how to study the scriptures in their context as opposed to taking one verse out of the context when we look at isaiah 53 everything in that chapter really talks about salvation from sin and and how christ well the messiah knows christ later on the messiah is going to take on our sin so it says uh surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows yet we esteemed him stricken right submitted by god and afflicted but he was wounded for our transgression so transgressions is clearly a word that talks about sin he was bruised for our iniquities there's another word for sin the chastisement for our peace was upon him so peace talks about having peace with god and having relationship with god and then by his stripes we are healed and then after that all we like sheep have gone astray that's another reference for sin we have turned everyone to his own way that's sin and the lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all and and so when you look at this passage the the immediate context is all about salvation it's all about um it's all about sin and the fact that our sin will be laid upon the messiah the coming messiah and he will take that sin away so there's nothing in this text that talks about physical healing yeah and and the sad thing is is i think you made such a good point about the effect this can have on people because i have known people who've walked away from god because they were told hey you're supposed to never be sick you're supposed to have tons of money and and that's the thing we have to understand about this this false gospel as well is that it's not just about sickness but it's also about financial prosperity i've i've heard pastors with my own ears say you know i used to work in this um it was a very poor neighborhood in new york city in the lower east side uh very poor people and for the most part and this preacher came in one time to this really small church that i was helping out with which was not a prosperity church but you know there was just such a mixed bag in that area and so this pastor drove in with this bmw and he told all of these people hey i brought my bmw here to this place because i want you all to see you know where you can actually go in your in your walk with god if you just get your faith level up you'll have a bmw sitting out there as well and and i just remember thinking what is he talking about because it just again it's just it was so contrary to um to that so i think that there can be people who might be a little bit sucked into the health part of it other people sucked in a little bit more to the wealth part of it but it's all sort of tied together with basically saying look the price jesus paid on the cross was your prosperity in every area which which of course you know has been grossly misinterpreted to have to do with money and with health and things like that and so um i think it also leaves people with a really weak theology of suffering so in all these deconstruction stories we're seeing you see people they go through a difficult maybe a death in the family or they look out and they see some horrific natural disaster where people really suffered and they don't have a category to put that in so i wonder if you could talk even a little bit about what the true gospel gives you when you actually go through hard times versus what the prosperity gospel will give you yeah absolutely you know so i want to make sure i i remember that question but i also want to talk a little bit about this idea of prosperity the reason why we can't claim that as a promise is that any promise that god gives us in his word has to work in every part of the world so those of us in the western part of the world the united states we could easily see how we could claim the idea of prosperity simply because even the most poor people here have food have clothing so on and so forth for so we could even see but the majority of the world is living in poverty yes so it does that mean that all of these christians and the majority of the world are not in god's will or they're living outside of god's will or they're living in sin or or they don't have enough faith to believe god because they're not prosperous no it's just that they're living in a third world country and that's the way it is right there so these promises from god that they claim we have to make sure that they work not just in america but they have to work in all other parts of the world so that's the first thing um now in terms of the gospel itself you know um now rephrase your question again about so just you know talking about suffering and how often people will walk away from god because they don't have a category to put their suffering into so what does the true gospel give us versus what the prosperity gospel gives us yeah thank you for that so you know the idea of suffering you know we we have to look at the fact that number one jesus himself suffered and he also talked about how you know those of us who follow him will also be persecuted because he said hey you know they're not going to just persecute you they're persecuting me uh you know we also know that uh the bible says that all who live godly will be persecuted uh there's sickness is a part of the fall of man it's it's it's tied back to the original sin of adam in the garden and so until the original sin is done away with let me just say it this way until the presence of sin is done away with because the power of sin can be overcome through living through the holy spirit meaning we don't have to submit to that sin anymore the penalty for sin meaning death and separation from god going to hell has now also been overcome because of the promise of christ and the sacrifice of christ but unfortunately the presence of sin in our lives is still very active and one of the effects of that is sickness and all these things so the gospel is all about us trusting christ that he took our sin a debt that we were unable to pay and he said hey even though you should have been you should be receiving punishment for all the ways that you've offended me in your entire life i'm not going to punish you instead i'm going to go to the cross and i'm going to allow my heavenly father to punish me to take out all of his anger and all of his wrath on me so that if you just place your faith in me then you will not have to experience the penalty of sin that is the nature of the gospel not how much we can get from god yeah it's i've already gotten the best gift i could ever get from god and that's eternal salvation and i think that's why when you read testimonies of christians in other countries who have been severely persecuted there is such a deep abiding joy and shall we even say prosperity that they have in their souls that i think that many of us who live in the west in more affluent areas probably we we haven't you know experienced that depth of persecution and suffering and and it was i was just reading rod drear's book i've mentioned this a couple times on podcasts lately and um just because it was so impactful but he he was interviewing christians all over eastern europe and places where communism came in and took over and they were persecuted and in every case he said they they just had this joy so deep down inside of them and and i mean you know let's just be real it just makes no sense logically biblically it doesn't make sense but it makes no sense logically that 2 000 years of christian history it's like nobody figured faith out until you know 1980 in the affluent rich west really i mean really people that does not that does not work at all so yeah exactly and i don't cut you off but that that's the that's the part that really frustrates me is that these people who have lost loved ones who now are not only disappointed in god but they're also and i forgot to bring this out before they're also made to feel like the reason why they did not get healed or the reason why their loved one didn't get healed is because they didn't have enough faith so now their pain of losing a loved one is not compounded because it's like well hey if you just would have prayed harder right he would have just had enough faith if you would have just believed it more then god could have healed this person so now they're they're they're experiencing pain they're frustrating themselves they're confused they're angry at god and then like you said they deconvert and it's just a huge um it's just a huge mess that would occur as many people as possible to stay away from yeah and it's it's an american export this isn't 2 000 years of church history preaching this prosperity gospel this is an american uh modern invention that that we're exporting to the rest of the world and so i think it's really good for people to be aware of it and um and just like me you know have the humility i realized i had a little bit of that influence when it came to what i believed about sickness and i think it just takes humility for all of us to go wow that was not biblical that was wrong i'm sorry lord i repent for for thinking that and please show me uh the truth and then get in the word and get some good bible studies and good bible teaching um you know i think that's a that's a good path for people but speaking of this false gospel we've called it a false gospel which is what it is um one of the i don't know if you get this as well but one of the big pushbacks i get when i talk about things like progressive christianity or the prosperity gospel or something along those lines is people will say uh you know well you shouldn't call people out by name and for the record i'm very slow to do that by the way i i'm not going to name someone as a false teacher unless they're actually teaching something that's going to hinder people from getting saved you know not just somebody that i might disagree with on a a secondary issue that i might actually feel really passionate about um but i i won't i mean i'm very slow to do that but um should christians call false teachers out by name why should we or shouldn't we and um and and what can we what kind of can we offer to help people think through in a culture where it's really unpopular to really to say anything negative about what somebody says or does you know i mean that's the culture we live in right now it's very unpopular to name someone and say hey they're wrong uh let alone bring that into the christian culture so so should we be calling false teachers out by name and and how should we do it and what is the benefit of doing that yeah yeah so i'm i'm a lot like you contrary to what people may think when they go to my youtube channel um you know i'm a lot like you i'm very careful to mention people by name um you know i have about 453 videos on my youtube channel and i think i have about five videos out of 453 videos that have actually mentioned a person by name so it's clear that you know i have a track record of not wanting to do that right um and even even in situations when i have done that it's typically been in response to something that that person has either done or said recently where i almost have to call them out by name in the video so for instance you know when benny hinn said that he was repenting of the prosperity gospel and that was huge news right um so i had to make a video on that and i had to use his name you know recently paula white you know uh did a prayer service after the election and you know so the question is you know is it biblical to do that you know when we look at the scriptures there are is definitely a precedent set by jesus and the new testament writers as well as the apostle paul uh people that they've called out you know paul talked about demas and his love the world and you know uh different people that have done him you know harm or different false teachers they need to stay away from and we can we can look at scriptures where they've done that um third john i believe it's either third john or second john and i think it's maybe second john where where john calls out um the ultrafists um you know for us as somebody that's causing trouble in the church and need to stay away from him and follow the example of demetrius and so there's definitely a precedent for to do for for um calling people out by name but here's the way i do it i typically don't label individual people as false teachers i would prefer to bring to surface false teachings it's a very big difference right so if i were to do a video tomorrow and i said you know jesus didn't really die on the cross let's say i was ignorant and i didn't really know that i would hate for somebody to discredit my entire ministry and say alan parr is a false teacher yeah but they would be within their right to say alan parr is promoting a false teaching and let me point it out that's good the reason why this is so important is because some of the biggest names of christianity are promoting some of the biggest heresies and as a result they are spreading this to literally millions and millions of people around the world and so if people aren't aware of their favorite tv personality preacher and what they really believe and what they're really teaching they're gonna go on and either a continue to listen to this person or b just be ignorant and in other words if i mention in my name at the very minimum they can say let me look further let me look into this and see what this person really believed let me go to their statement of faith let me let me listen to some of their other things and they can start to develop discernment doesn't mean that they shouldn't listen to this person anymore but they should listen to this person with a lot more discernment knowing that they're promoting something that's false so i think that it's necessary when when god puts it on a leader's heart to do that and what advice would you give to christians who are trying to think through how to use discernment biblically what is discernment and how can christians get better at it how can we how can we refine our discernment skills yeah you know so i think there's really a simple solution to that is um you know the bible talks in hebrews 5 about um you know not uh talks about by this time you should be teaching others but instead you have the need for me to teach you the elementary truths of the word of god so he says hey instead of drinking milk it's time for you to start eating solid foods so that by practice you'll have your senses trained to discern good from evil right so i think a the i mean for me and i forgot to share this earlier in my testimony which i'm glad i have a chance to do it now is um in college i said i was discipled by a man for the first three years of my real relationship with christ i was in a heavily charismatic prosperity driven church and that's part of my testimony which i left out earlier it's part of why i'm so passionate now about helping other people because i know how caught up in it i was but i didn't know any better i didn't read my bible i wasn't able to listen to what this sermon was saying and then compare it to what i read in my devotional this morning because i wasn't strong enough but once i started studying the bible for myself i started seeing dis uh inconsistencies with what the bible says for instance give you a quick one the bible says that if they're speaking in tongues there should only be one person doing it taking a turn and there should be interpretation when i'm reading that and then the next day i go to church and the whole church is speaking in tongues in the past the same time yeah yeah at the same time and nobody's interpreting anything that's when discernment kicks in and you're like wait what didn't i just read that something isn't right here and that's just one instance and and studying the scriptures and listening to sound biblical teachers is the best way to build up that discernment so you can really see what truth is and what's not that's really good stuff we're going to do one final question before we go to our subscriber portion our patreon supporter portion so if we look back through church history a case could certainly be made that christians used the bible to advocate for slavery but then at the same time a case could be made that there were christians who used the bible to fight against slavery we know that this is william wilberforce you know it was his biblical interpretation that was like no this is not okay with god and i think that this can be a subject that's very confusing for christians so alan does the bible support slavery and what's a great way for christians to think through this topic biblically [Laughter] well i'll tell you what if there's one ver if there's one video on my channel that i catch more slack for is the video on you know um you know does god support or condone slavery i forget the exact title and primarily people are just shocked because i'm an african-american man and the stance that i took on that and and the problem is that you know people are really not understanding the concept of biblical slavery so let me let me say it this way um does the bible support slavery depends on what we're talking how we define slavery so first and foremost we have to understand that there are a lot of things in the scriptures that were never in god's intended will and god knew that these things were going to happen and so as a result he had to establish laws in place to regulate sinful behavior of man even though it was never in his will divorce is an example divorce is not in the will of god but god knows our hearts and he knows that they people are going to choose to get divorced so what did god do he had to through moses establish certain specific old testament mosaic laws about whether you can write your wife a certificate of divorce and what happens with that so just because there are laws in the bible about something doesn't mean that god's intent was for you to do this it's just god saying hey this is how i want you to respond community of israel when this happens because i a lot of people that'll say well you're saying that god condoned slavery in the bible because there's laws i said no god is trying to manage this now once again how do i how do we how do we just discuss slavery how do we define it clearly god condone excuse me god condemns i'll use the wrong word clearly god condemns any form of kidnapping yes oppression of a race that is not found biblical anywhere that god would condone some that sort of behavior and there i could go into scriptures where we talk about i mean it was even punishable by death like human trafficking slavery in that sense was actually condem it was punished by death exactly kidnapping so that's the thing so if we know that's the case then we know that the slavery that we saw in our country was not something that god condoned right right so we so then we have to say okay then what was going on during that time and basically it was just indentured servitude so slavery and maybe we'll use a less uh a offensive word servanthood servanthood in the old testament was really a a um a way to preserve and care for the poor because if i'm poor and i owe somebody money or someone in my family owed somebody money and they died and i spend there for my family still owes them money i can't pay you back i don't have the money i don't have it to give it to you but what i can do is work i can give you my time so that if i can work it off then i can pay off my debt and the bible is very clear about how to treat slaves and to treat them you know with honor and different things like that so really and truly that was really the system that we saw and by the way it was volitional you chose to you chose to be a servant or a slave of someone else for an intended purpose of paying off a debt versus what we see in our country where people were kidnapped so it was a very different system that we saw there i i just saw something in the last year or two where the esv translation committee so that that committee of scholars that translates for the esv bible they're having a discussion right now about that old in the old testament i believe the word is abed that that is translated into english as slave and they're actually having discussions about changing the english translation from slave to servant because that's actually more of an accurate description of what was actually going on like you mentioned you know indention indentured servanthood so it'd be interesting to kind of track that and see what ends up happening there with the the esv bible but we're going to go into our subscriber portion for people who support the ministry on patreon if you want to see the rest of this we're going to talk for a few more minutes with alan parr today and with every guest that i have we do a little bonus segment for our patreon supporters if you're not on patreon with us you can go to patreon.com alisa childers you can check it out there's different tiers available you can join at tier one to get the monthly ministry update video tier two gives you early access i believe it's tier four that you're gonna get the bonus content but there's facebook pages you can join there's little goodies you can get throughout the year so definitely go to patreon.com alisa childers to check out the different options and we'd love to have you a part of the community and alan as we close out this segment i'd love to just ask you if you if you could just leave some encouragement for our listeners today uh what would you say to as just some parting words as they go about their day and uh you know maybe as they're thinking through some of these questions for the first time yeah you know i think the the biggest thing is to to make sure that we are spending time with god on a regular basis and i know that sounds very very you know um just kind of matter of fact but really and truly i think that you would probably agree with me that you didn't get to where you are in your knowledge and your maturity and your spiritual walk just going to church and hanging out with christians right that's great that's part of it but if you really really want to have that discernment if you really want to be able to pray over people's lives and it be impactful if you really want to give people godly wisdom and be seen as somebody that people can trust that you're going to give them godly wisdom it all comes from your time with god how much time you're spending with god and then the last thing i'll say is just just as best you can put yourself in a place where you're listening to sound doctrine and if you have a question what that is or who those people are i'm sure you can reach out to um alyssa and she can give you probably a list of 10 to 15 youtubers or even you know pastors and preachers of this day that are really really sound that we trust that have good solid theology so you can really get god's truth in your spirit that's good who's your favorite bible teacher if you had to pick one oh man you know um i i i i'm an old school guy and i i really when i was coming along i was really impacted by john macarthur um tony evans charles stanley chuck swindoll i mean those guys were people who really really had a significant effect on my faith as a young believer and none of them probably have any idea that they have but i mean i used to eat just just soak up every single thing that they had and i still i still like to listen to them that's great and if i had to pick a favorite just bible teacher it would probably be alistair beg have you listened to much alistar beg yes yeah yeah he was from the cleveland area uh his church and i went to school and i went to college in cleveland so okay great awesome yeah all right well if you're watching and listening definitely check out allen's youtube channel the beat by alan parr on youtube join the how many subscribers like hundreds of thousands or over a million it's it's a lot right it's not it's not million we just recently passed over five hundred thousand that's amazing amazing that is amazing and you can go to ellenpar.com alan thanks so much for being on the show today thanks so much yep god bless [Music] you

Channel: Alisa Childers

Views: 125,204

Rating: 4.8752184 out of 5

Keywords: apologetics

Id: JAEZNwz9EtY

Length: 54min 58sec (3298 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 14 2021